


The Long Journey Home

by pooh_collector



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, teeny bit of language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pooh_collector/pseuds/pooh_collector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Neal leaves the city at Peter’s beckoning for a case he ends up farther away from home than he thought and getting back proves to be quite the journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kanarek's Art Post is [here](http://kanarek13.livejournal.com/85834.html).

 

  
“Neal, dear.”

“Yes, June?” Neal's ever-elegant landlady was standing at the bottom of the staircase, wrapped in a cream-colored winter coat, Bugsy on his leash at her side.

“I wanted to remind you about the gala on Saturday evening. You’ll still be free to escort me?”

Neal walked down the stairs, slipping his own wool coat on as he went. Things had been far too hectic in his life lately and he had forgotten that the event was this weekend. But he was nothing if not the master of guile. “Of course,” he replied, sliding on his brightest smile. “I cleared it with Peter, he’ll let the Marshals know.”

June returned a knowing smile and took his hand in hers when he reached the main floor. “Thank you, dear. I know Peter’s been keeping you very busy lately. I’m glad you’ll be able to make the time. I’m looking forward to spending an evening with you on my arm.”

"Me too," he said sincerely. He really was looking forward to it, despite his absentmindedness. A night at a Valentine's Day themed event with June in her glamorous world complete with dinner and a silent auction for one of the many charities that she supported would be a wonderful change of pace. He hoped they would have their current case wrapped up by then, so that he could truly relax and enjoy the evening.

Neal’s phone buzzed and with a sigh he extricated his hand from June’s to pull the device from his suit pocket. It was a text from Mozzie. The third that Neal had received in the last hour. Neal’s quirky friend had gotten himself a somewhat legitimate job designing a security system for a not so legitimate client and he had been picking Neal’s brain at a furious pace over the past several days.

Neal was happy to help, mostly, but right now he had to get to the office. With any luck Peter and the team had completed the paperwork and secured an arrest warrant for their suspect, Gil Edmunds. By the end of the day they could have this case wrapped up and the man who had been defrauding elderly couples of their homes locked away where he belonged. Neal shivered involuntarily at how crass mortgage fraud was in general and how particularly distasteful it was to be cheating elderly people.

He clicked the text closed and put the phone away. Then he kissed June on the cheek and headed toward the door, her well wishes for his day ringing in his ears.

The White Collar offices were hopping when Neal arrived. Before he even removed his coat and settled in at his desk, he heard Jones call his name.

Without slowing his stride Neal dropped his hat on his Socrates bust and made his way to Jones’ desk. “Clinton?”

“I need your help with these R44s,” Jones stated as he handed Neal a stack of blank government forms.

Neal made a face. “I’m really not a red tape kind of guy.”

Jones looked up at him, his eyes widening. “You are today.”

Neal nodded tersely and reluctantly took the papers that Jones was holding out.

He spent the next four hours alternately filling in the forms and pulling out the strands of his hair, one by one. Paperwork was every bit as bad as the worst day of prison life had been. Neal could honestly testify to that fact and he would, if anyone was willing to listen.

He was on the final page of the forms when a Peter-shaped shadow crossed his desk. “Neal, how’s it going?”

Neal looked up, hoping to see his lover standing over him and was disappointed to find Agent Burke in front of his desk. “Peter.”

“We need to get these filed, so we can get our warrant.”

Neal nodded. “I need another five minutes.”

Peter’s eyes glinted and for a moment he looked less agent-like, “Good, that’s good. We should be on our way to make the arrest before the end of the day.”

“That’s great,” Neal replied with a smile.

Before Peter had a chance to walk away, Neal’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He reached for the device where it was sitting on the side of his desk and noted with a sigh that it was once again from Mozzie.

“Problem?” Peter asked, pursing his lips the way he always did when he was concerned about something.

“No, it’s nothing,” Neal answered as he placed the phone back down. “I’ll bring these up to your office in just a minute.”

Peter nodded and then headed back up to his office. Neal couldn’t help taking a small and appreciative peek at his lover’s ass as he crossed the bullpen. Then with a renewed sense of determination he focused on the final empty boxes on the R44s.

With the paperwork done and handed off to Peter, Neal returned to his desk with a relaxing roll of his shoulders. Maybe he could take a couple of minutes to answer Mozzie’s half dozen texts and then grab some lunch before they left for the bust.

He was rereading Mozzie’s second missive, when Diana approached him and dumped a stack of files in the center of his desk. Neal looked up, his eyebrows quirked in question.

“These need to be filed.”

“Don’t we have interns for that?”

Diana gazed down, moving her eyes from his face to his phone. “They have work to do, and now so do you.”

Neal pocketed his phone and picked up the stack of files, tapping them against his desktop. “Anything for you, Diana,” he conceded with a wide smile.

She smirked at him with a shake of her head and then made her way back to her own workspace.

Neal got up and headed back toward the shelves of files that lined the rear of the office, knowing that lunch was now off his itinerary. His shoulders slumped as he scanned the shelves looking for the location of the first folder in his hands. He felt strangely tired, worn down by all the demands that life and his friends and coworkers had been placing on him of late. It was nothing unusual and nothing he couldn’t handle. He had balanced many more demands and opposing obligations after Mozzie had stolen the treasure. But for some reason, lately, it seemed like everyone needed something and they needed it now and Neal was getting tired of being their go-to-gopher. He felt like a henpecked husband, without the advantages of hearth and home that came along with actually being married.

Neal sighed as he shoved the first folder into its correct location. That wasn’t really a fair assessment. No one was truly asking him to do anything that was difficult or outside of his wheelhouse and he did get to enjoy the home and hearth of Chez Burke on a regular basis; it was just a lot going on at once. By the end of the day this case would be wrapped up and he would be wrapped up with Peter and El in their bed and everything would be so much better. He just needed to make it that far.

Neal straightened his shoulders and committed himself to the task at hand, knowing there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, that light turned out to be the headlights of their suspect’s car as he rabbited. Peter had told Neal to stay at the car while he and the rest of the team went in to the make the arrest. As usual Neal interpreted Peter’s words in his own particular way and decided that standing just outside of the Taurus was close enough.

But, their suspect Edmunds must have seen them coming. Just as they announced themselves at the front door of his condo in Queens, his car came barreling out from the back of the building. It took the corner too wide, sliding on the slush left over from their most recent winter storm. Neal saw the Buick slipping even as he watched their suspect through the windshield pulling on the wheel trying to correct the car’s turn. It was to no avail, the sedan was coming straight toward Neal where he stood by Peter's Taurus.

For a moment, he was the proverbial deer in the headlights unable to move as the car came ever closer. With just moments to spare, he dove up and over the front end of Peter’s car, just before the Buick slid in close, clipping off the Taurus’ rear view mirror and taking it with it down the road.

Neal’s momentum carried him over the car and onto the street where he rolled to an abrupt stop against the icy, slushy curb, the wind knocked out of him by his impact with the pavement.

Before he had a chance to catch his breath, Peter was there kneeling over him.

“Neal!”

“I’m fine,” Neal replied as he uncurled from the tucked position he had landed in and pushed himself up to sit.

Peter’s hands were everywhere and if they had been at the Burke's home in the privacy of the bedroom Neal would have loved it, but not so much on a street corner in Flatbush.

“Peter, I’m fine, please.” Gently, he pushed Peter’s hands aside and got to his feet, more anxious about the freezing wet slush soaking into his skin than any minor injury he might have sustained in the fall.  
  
“Are you sure?” Peter’s eyes were wide and his concern was evident in his voice. He wrapped his hand tentatively around Neal’s upper arm as Neal nodded. “You can call me a mother hen as much as you want, but I’m taking you to get checked out.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Neal replied with a resigned groan.

Hours later, Peter turned in his seat, the leather squeaking loudly in the confines of the car and brushed Neal’s hair away from his forehead gently as he pleaded his case one last time. “You really should come back to Brooklyn tonight. Let El spoil you.”

Neal savored the careful touch of his lover’s hand in his hair for a moment before replying. He had been feeling so mired down by all the demands that were being placed on him just a few hours ago. The last thing he needed was to spend the night reassuring Peter and El that he was really okay. “You know on any other night I would love that, but I’m just really tired and I think I need to be alone in my misery to sleep.”

Peter frowned at Neal, unhappy that his partner preferred to be by himself with his pain instead of taking the comfort that he and El were glad to offer. They hadn’t been a threesome for long, but Peter had hoped that the walls Neal used to guard himself against further losses in his life would have started to come down by now.

“I know you would feel better if you could keep your eye on me; but I’m alright, Peter. The ER doctor said no broken bones and no concussion. I’ll be fine in the morning, I promise,” Neal placated.

Peter swallowed, remembering how his heart had stopped as he stood and helplessly watched their fleeing suspect’s car careening toward Neal, nearly plowing his partner down. Peter’s frown deepened from the memory, but he nodded, willing himself to allow Neal whatever he needed to recover from the day’s trauma. “Okay, whatever you need.”

They got out of the car then and Peter shadowed Neal into the mansion and up the stairs to Neal’s apartment. Peter helped Neal out of his still damp and definitely ruined suit and into a pair of pajamas smoothly manipulating the cloth over his lover’s sore and bruised body. Then he got Neal settled in the bed, with the covers pulled up over him, a glass of fresh water on the nightstand. He kissed Neal on the forehead chastely and then turned to go.

Neal reached out and snagged Peter’s hand pulling him back toward the bed. “Thank you, Peter, for understanding.”

Peter smiled down at him. “Of course.”

Neal pulled Peter closer to lean over him and opened his lips in invitation. Peter leaned down and kissed Neal, tasting his lips, then his tongue and then he deepened the kiss even further, letting his partner know how much he loved him and how very glad he was that Neal had survived the day with nothing worse than some bumps and bruises.

When they parted, Peter caressed Neal’s cheek. “Get some rest. Sleep in in the morning. And, don’t think you’re getting out of spending the night at Casa Burke tomorrow.”

_When you’re up grab the Metro North to Tarrytown. I’ll have someone pick you up at the station there. You’re going to love this new case._

That was all Peter’s text had said. Neal had tried to call his partner when he found the message on his phone, but Peter hadn’t picked up, probably too busy at the scene. Neal was surprised that Peter had taken on a new case, after yesterday’s FUBAR. But, maybe it was really for the best that the team take a break from the case that had gone so far south just yesterday. Gil Edmunds had made a clean getaway and was still at large when last they had been updated by Diana just as they were leaving the hospital the previous night.

It was already nearly ten and Neal’s head still hurt enough that all he really wanted to do was curl up in his bed and go back to sleep. But, he got up, slowly, and made his way toward the bathroom. He took his time showering, letting the hot water ease the pounding echoing inside his skull and the aches in his abused muscles. Then he got dressed and ate a slice of toast with a cup of tea, hoping his stomach wouldn’t freak out at the prospect of food. Thankfully, it seemed to be okay as he pulled on his coat and headed out to catch a taxi to Grand Central. It was frigid for mid-February, and Neal was glad he had the extra layer to stave off the chill. Despite that, he cracked open his window in the cab and breathed in the fresh, cold air on the way across town to the terminal to help him stay focused and hopefully keep his headache to a dull roar.

Regardless of the off hour, Grand Central was a zoo and Neal had to maneuver his way through crowds of tourists and commuters to get his ticket. Before heading to the platform he took a moment to look up into the sea green night sky above him. Orion was standing as tall and strong as ever with Gemini at his back and Taurus before him. Neal smiled at the failure of the designers, Hewlett and Basing, to place the bull and the twins in their correct positions in the sky. To the untrained eye, it made perfect sense for Orion’s club to be raised in defense against the on-rushing bull, but the bull is sitting in the place where the twins should reside and vice versa. If Orion was depicted as he often was with a shield formed with the star Bellatrix at its center, and Taurus was in his correct position, Orion would be facing down toward him, his shield held high between them, his club raised to strike, with the twins sitting above them watching the action. Others might wonder why the error hadn’t been corrected when the ceiling was reconstructed in the 1930s, but Neal was glad the original design had been preserved. It was wrong, but it was art and history.

Neal glanced over at the four-faced clock on the information booth. It was just striking noon. His train was due to depart in fifteen minutes so he traversed the Main Concourse, dodging the onlookers too engrossed in the beauty of the building to mind where they walked, to the arched entrance to his platform. Thankfully, the train was already there, waiting for its departure time and Neal ducked into a car halfway down and found a seat.

He leaned his head against the bright orange and dirty beige seat back and settled in for the trip north. The scent of commuter train, a strange combination of stale air, hoary plastic and sardined business people, wafted into his nose. Neal sighed and closed his eyes. He really hoped this case would be as Peter promised. Nothing less would make a trip upstate on Metro North worth it today.

His headache flared and Neal mentally kicked himself for not remembering to take something to fight it before leaving his apartment. He would have to try to bum something off whoever Peter sent to pick him up, or get them to stop somewhere on the way to the crime scene, wherever that actually ended up being.

It wasn’t long before the seats around him filled up and then the doors closed and the train pulled away from the terminal. As they began the trip north Neal pondered what kind of case could possibly bring Peter and the team all the way up to Tarrytown. He couldn’t think of anything at Lyndhurst that would be worth the trouble. There might be a special exhibit of some sort going on at Marymount that was a possibility, but he hadn't heard of anything. There weren’t any significant private collectors that Neal knew of living there, but of course he wasn’t as in the know about these things as he used to be and there was always the potential for a single piece, long owned by one family, to have gone missing.

And, of course there was Sunnyside, the famous home of Washington Irving. Maybe the crime was committed there and had something to do with Sleepy Hallow. Maybe some fan of the Fox show had gone a little overboard with their fascination. Who knew?

It didn't take long for Neal’s headache to make the usually pleasant act of speculating on the crime at hand to be anything but pleasant, so he closed his eyes and let himself sink down into his seat. The rhythmic shshunk, shshunk, shshunk sound of the train as it passed along the tracks and the rocking side to side motion, despite being loud and jarring, were strangely lulling and Neal found himself dozing as the train made its way along the Hudson River.

In that strange place between fully asleep and fully cognizant of what stations were passing him by, Neal’s mind didn’t travel to the north end of Tarrytown, to Sleepy Hollow. He didn’t dream about the headless horseman or Ichabod Crane or frightening nights on dark lonely roads. Instead he dreamed of a little village at the foot of the Catskill Mountains and about another man that featured in a different Washington Irving tale, the seemingly overburdened and henpecked husband Rip Van Winkle.

Neal dreamed of the long lost Rip's return to his village, where his grey beard and aged face left him unrecognizable to those he had left behind so many years ago. In his dream, Neal could feel Rip's confusion, hadn't he merely been gone for a day? How could his friends be old men, his son be grown with children of his own, his wife be dead and dust? Neal's Rip was grief stricken for the days lost that he could never get back, all the sunny summers, the colorful falls, the frosty winters and the vibrant springs. All the days lazing under shade trees, the evenings spent in the pub, the nights at the hearth with his wife and child and even the many chores and obligations that he had longed to escape before he had fallen asleep in that sun-drenched field.

Neal startled awake to the conductor's call, "Tickets!"

The deep sense of loss that pervaded his dream followed Neal back to the conscious world. He hid his face, and the tears that were pooling in the corners of his eyes, as he held out his ticket to the conductor to be punched.

He didn't know exactly what or who it was that he himself was mourning, his mother, Kate, Ellen, the ideal of a hero father who had never actually existed, the years he had lost to prison, the years he was partly losing to the anklet. Maybe a bit of all of those things, and maybe none. He knew that he had dealt with more than his share of loss in his thirty-five years and that those losses had an impact on who he was and how he managed or mismanaged his few remaining relationships.

He sighed as he swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He should have let Peter take him back to Brooklyn last night. Hiding his vulnerability, his pain, his need for comfort, was not helping his newfound relationship with them. If he wanted the chance to have a future without regret, without mourning for missed opportunities and lost loves, he needed to figure out how to let them love him, how to let them in and stop walling himself up in a prison build by his own hands, brick by brick.

His thoughts made his throat constrict painfully and brought more tears to prickle at his eyes. Neal turned to the window and watched the trees and the clouds pass by as the train pushed north letting the sight of the world shrouded in winter soothe him.

His head continued to throb in time with the shshunk, shshunk of the train along the tracks, but after a while the tightness in his throat eased and his eyes dried. There was something about the starkness of the bare tree limbs against the bright blue of the sky that made him long for summer, the trees bright with new leaves, the flowers in bloom, the air soft and warm. Maybe, when the weather changed he would find the walls he had built, that he thought were made of brick and mortar, were merely ice and they would melt away, along with the remnants of the winter’s snows.

Neal closed his eyes again as the train pulled into the station at Dobb’s Ferry. He only had three more stops before they arrived in Tarrytown and he needed to get his head in gear. He didn’t want Peter to see that he had spent the ride up from the city mired in self-pity. Peter’s ability to read right through him was uncanny and honestly made him glad that he had given up the life of a conman. He had quite obviously slipped in the years that he had been more or less out of commission.

He used the last remaining minutes he had aboard the train to push aside the remnants of his dream and the feelings it had stirred in him and paste his infamous smile back onto his face. As the train pulled into the station, Neal texted Peter to let him know that he had arrived.

The sun was bright, but the air still crisp and cold, as Neal stepped onto the platform. He made his way down to the parking area and waited for a reply from Peter for a couple of minutes before spying the appropriately named The Horseman diner just across the street. The sign across the top of the brick building showed a silhouette of the famous headless rider in his typical stance, arm back ready to throw his pumpkin head sitting astride his rearing horse.

He brought up his text app and typed, _Waiting at the diner, The Horseman, just across the street from the station._

He then made his way across the street to the door of the diner. It swung open with a merry jingle and Neal immediately smelled coffee, burgers frying on the grill top and pizza fresh from the oven. He found a booth in the corner, took off his overcoat and slid onto the red vinyl seat.

A moment later a waitress appeared. “What can I get you, hon?”

Neal startled slightly when Peter and El’s favorite endearment was directed at him. He blinked up at the waitress almost expecting to see one of them standing over him. Instead he saw a woman a decade younger than El, with long dark hair and an olive, and obviously Mediterranean complexion, looking back at him. Her name tag appropriately read Sophia.

“Just coffee, thank you,” he finally managed to reply with a tight smile.

“Coming right up.”

While he waited, Neal toyed with his phone, finding it strange that Peter hadn’t yet returned his text. He reasoned that Peter was probably busy doing an interview and had just sent someone off to get him without taking the time to reply. He just hoped he didn’t end up waiting in the diner for too long.

When Sophia returned she placed a steaming mug of black coffee in front of him and then slid a single dose packet of Advil down next to it. Neal looked up at her, questioningly.

“You look like you could use them,” she responded with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Thank you,” he answered with a slight nod.

“You’re welcome. Let me know if I can get you anything else.”

Neal nodded again and then picked up his mug as she moved on to another customer. The coffee was strong and hot and Neal felt its heat as it travelled all the way down to the pit of his stomach. He picked up the small packet and twirled it in his fingers for a moment before tearing it open and swallowing the two pills with another sip of his coffee.

He took his time finishing his drink while watching out the large plate glass window next to him for a familiar FBI motor pool car to show up. When none did by the time he finished the last dregs of his brew, Neal pushed himself into the corner of the booth, pulled his legs up onto the seat and closed his eyes. He would give the Advil a chance to do its thing as long as he still had to wait for his ride.

It wasn’t long before he felt himself drifting, despite the headache, or maybe because of it. He knew he should open his eyes, sit up and stay alert, but neither the spirit nor the body were willing.


	2. The Long Journey Home, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Neal leaves the city at Peter’s beckoning for a case he ends up farther away from home than he thought and getting back proves to be quite the journey.

  
“Hey, buddy, you can’t sleep here.”

The voice boomed in Neal’s ears and he woke with a jerk, his eyes flying open. Above him loomed a large man, with close cropped dark hair and dark eyes. He was wearing a black polo shirt with The Horseman’s telltale logo emblazoned over his heart.

Neal slipped his feet off the seat. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll just pay my check and go.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and was surprised when he felt much more than a 5 o’clock stubble on his cheeks and chin.

He looked up then and noticed that the scene before him seemed very different from when he had fallen asleep. It could have only been a short time ago, but entirely new patrons sat at the counter and in the other booths that he could see. The light was wrong too. It had been just half past one when he had gotten off the train and now the sun was almost gone, the sky turning dark outside the windows.

Neal threw a twenty on the white laminate table and slid out of the booth, his overcoat clutched in one fist and his phone in the other. He made a beeline for the restrooms and ducked into the door that read men. The mirror held the image of a different man from the one he had seen just this morning in the mirror in his own bathroom. His once clean-shaven face now held a full beard, one that should have taken him a week at least to grow. He leaned in close to the mirror and turned his head from side to side, and noticed threads of silver in the beard and in the hair at his temples too. _What the hell?,_ he thought to himself.  
  
He couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours. And even that seemed strange. Why would no one have woken him sooner? Neal looked down at his phone and pushed the button to activate the screen. Nothing happened. He pushed the button again with the same result. Then in a combination of frustration and fear, he jabbed at it repeatedly. Still nothing happened. Clearly the battery had died while he had been sleeping.

Neal slipped the phone into his jacket pocket, hung his coat up on the hook on the wall beside the sink and turned on the tap. When the water was good and cold he cupped his hands under the stream and splashed the water on his face. It was bracing and Neal felt the residual fog of sleep melt away. He repeated the action and then pulled a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and dried himself off roughly scrubbing at his skin.

The face staring back at him from the mirror was still not the one he expected to see. His heart thudded in his chest in time to the headache that somehow still pounded behind his eyes. But he wasn’t going to find any answers to what was going on hiding in the diner’s washroom, so he straightened the lines of his rumpled suit jacket, grabbed up his coat and walked back into the diner proper.

The sun had set outside the diner’s windows. Neal took a deep breath, pulled his coat on and headed outside. He was startled to find the air beyond the diner’s door to be warm and slightly sticky. He had expected it to be cold, colder even than it had been when he had first made his way across the street from the station. He looked up and down the street through the growing gloom and realized that the trees that had been completely bare earlier in the day were now covered in leaves and the ground beneath them green with grass.

Neal looked up to where the constellations were just beginning to brighten the night sky. He expected to see Orion flanked by Gemini and Taurus, but the Twins were on their own, just rising up in the west. That was wrong, all wrong. It was February, they should all be there.

Neal stumbled as he spun around searching the sky for the stars he knew should be lighting the night. His balance gone, he fell to his hands and knees on the pavement, the cement biting into the heels of his palms. He knelt there for a long moment, as his head spun and pounded trying to regain his bearings, trying to make some sense of these last few minutes of his life.

He pulled the warm air into his lungs raggedly and shivered as cold sweat ran down his spine. He wanted to let the panic win, to curl up into as small a ball as possible and just wait until Peter found him. Peter always found him.

Neal pulled one of his hands from the pavement, brushed the grit that was embedded in his shredded skin off on his coat and tugged at his pant leg hoping like hell he would see the anklet’s little light glowing red. He wanted Peter, but right about now, he would settle for the Marshals. But his anklet wasn’t red, in fact just like his phone, it appeared to be dead, with no light glowing at all.

He didn’t understand what was happening and in truth he didn’t care. He just wanted this surreal feeling to go away, to be home safe with Peter and Elizabeth, at their house, in their bed, in their arms. Right now, he would give anything to be there.

Neal pushed himself over so his butt met the pavement and breathed deeply to settle the panic. He looked up again to the twins, Castor and Pollux, “Tell me what’s going on, please?”

They remained mute in the sky despite Neal’s plea. The more he stared up at them the more their light and the light from the other constellations and stars began to bleed and swirl together, almost like Neal could see the galaxies or distant nebulae with their dense patches of greens and blues and golds. He blinked once, twice and then his vision cleared to again reveal the stars of late spring. Neal shivered again, sighing.

He was going to have to get himself home and then hopefully Peter could help him sort it all out. Hopefully.

Neal pried himself up off the sidewalk, feeling his hands sting again as he pushed off against the cement. The train station and his ticket home were just across the street.

The station house was dark and locked, but Neal found the ticket machines on the platform and bought himself a one way back to Grand Central Terminal. He didn’t have a schedule and he had no idea when the next train was going to roll through, so he walked down the platform to a row of black metal seats next to a billboard for the latest Broadway revival of Oklahoma and plunked down.

Neal sat and waited while the florescent bulbs above him buzzed behind the chirp of the crickets. He sat and waited while the warm air enveloped him and filled his lungs and made his shirt stick to his skin under his suit jacket and wool coat. He sat and waited as his spine and ass throbbed from the hard metal seat. He sat and waited while the night grew deeper and the stars traversed across the sky. He sat and waited while his desire to be home grew and grew and his anxiety over the events of the day increased.

Finally, after what seemed like hours upon hours of waiting, Neal heard the sound of the train’s whistle as it announced its arrival, followed by the ding ding ding of the gates at the nearby crossing as they warned of the train’s approach. He stood and looked north and saw the headlights of the engine as it rolled toward the platform.

Briefly, Neal’s mind flew back to the previous day, or was it months or even years ago, and the last set of headlights he had seen, the ones that almost knocked him flat and sent him careening into the icy slush. Neal could still feel the wet and the cold and the hard cement against his body. How could that have been months ago?

He was pulled from his thoughts as the slowing silver cars began to pass, the Metro North logo on each one flipping across his field of vision like frames in an old black and white movie. Eventually, the train came to a full stop before him and a pair of doors slid open a few pacess away. Neal stepped on board and looked to this left. That section of the car was occupied by a lone kid wearing a fifty dollar Macklemore concert tee shirt and worn and strategically torn jeans. He was sitting in a seat in the middle of the space tapping his sneakered foot on the linoleum floor as he listened to music on his iphone through a set of Beats headphones.

Time may have somehow inexplicably passed him by while he had been asleep in the diner, changing the seasons from winter to late spring, but at least it was apparently still the same decade. Neal turned to the right, into the part of the car that was unoccupied and took a seat as the train pulled away from the station. He was finally on his way home.

It wasn’t long before the conductor entered the car and called for tickets. Neal pulled his from his coat pocket and handed it over to be punched.

Something clicked in his head as the conductor handed the ticket back to him and Neal examined it closely. The date stamped in the corner read June 12, 2012. Four months. Somehow it had been four months since he had left the city.

How was he going to explain this to Peter, to Elizabeth? He supposed it wouldn’t really matter once the Marshals got ahold him and he was sent back to prison, possibly for the remainder of his life.

He turned his head to look out the window, but all he could see against the black of the night was his own reflection created by the florescent lights in the car. The beard with its strands of grey was too disturbing a sight, so he turned away again to stare blankly down the length of the train car.

The train rolled south stopping briefly in Irvington; Ardsley-on-Hudson with its historic Tudor stationhouse; Dobbs Ferry, and the funky flowers painted on the ticket office; Hastings-on-Hudson; Greystone; and Glenwood whose platform was totally surrounded by trees and tall green bushes, and Neal could feel the tension coiled tight from his shoulders to his stomach loosen ever so slightly the closer he got to the city. He knew there would be no easy solution to whatever it was that had happened to him, but he knew if he could just get home, he would find a way to deal with whatever came next, even if it was prison.

They had to have been nearing Yonkers when Neal felt the train shudder and then abruptly slow until it came to a stop. The overhead lights flickered a couple of times as the train ceased moving and then went out. Emergency lights came on leaving the train still mostly dark and bathed in eerie shadows.

After a minute, the conductor’s voice rang out over the PA system, muddled and indistinct. Neal could just make out something about the engine and repairs. The coil in this body twisted tighter and Neal closed his eyes against the fear this new lack of movement ignited.

About fifteen minutes later the conductor made his way through Neal’s car, explaining in more detail that they were trying to repair the problem with the engine and thanking everyone for their patience.

As it did on the platform in Tarrytown, time seemed to creep by as Neal waited. The air in the car grew stale and thick with the air conditioning system as dead as the lighting and Neal began to worry that he might possibly never make it home or at least not in time to be with Peter and El, not in time to make a life with them. The idea that they would be old and grey, or worse yet dead and gone, by the time he finally reached the city was so irrational on the surface that Neal almost laughed aloud, but then he thought about the beard on his chin and the green leaves on the trees outside and the hot, sticky air that he was breathing in and he nearly cried instead.

Neal suddenly felt an overwhelming need to talk to his partner. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tried to turn it on one more time, only confirming its uselessness. Then he remembered the kid sitting on the other side of the car and his iphone.

Neal stood and fumbled his way in the dim light down the aisle to where the kid sat with his headphones now wrapped around his neck.

“Excuse me, is there any chance I could borrow your phone for a quick call? Mine is dead,” he explained as he waggled the offending thing before the kid as evidence.

The kid looked at him, blinked lazily and then replied. “Sorry man, mine croaked a little while ago. Didn’t think we’d get stuck or I would have saved some battery power.”

Neal nodded. “Thanks anyway,” he murmured as he turned to make his way back to his seat, disappointment and a smothering sense of dread filling him.

They waited silently for a long time, hours perhaps, before the conductor came around again and announced that the train would need to be towed in for repairs and that in the meantime a bus had been dispatched from Yonkers to drive the passengers to the remaining stations along the route.

Then they waited for the bus, and when it finally arrived the train doors were opened and the conductor led the few passengers to the bus that sat idling next to the tracks. On the short walk, Neal looked up at the sky longing for even a glimpse of Orion’s belt, but the twins were still alone in the heavens. He sighed, the balmy air clogging his lungs.

Thankfully, as he boarded the bus he was hit by a wash of cool air that prickled his overly warm skin. At least the air conditioning on the bus was working. There were only about twenty passengers, so Neal slid into a row near the front of the bus and had both seats to himself. A woman in a dark blue, fitted power suit and three-inch Jimmy Choo stilettos sat just across the aisle from him. Neal noticed that she looked harried and more than a little put out by the delay. He certainly couldn’t blame her.

Not long after the bus pulled away onto the road heading toward the Yonkers’ station she took out a cell phone and typed something into it. Neal assumed she was sending a text. Before she could return the phone to her bag, Neal leaned across the aisle. “Excuse me, could I possibly borrow your phone to make a quick call. Mine died and I’d like to let my partner know where I am.” He smiled at her, hoping she would be charmed, or at least not concerned by a stranger’s request. He knew there was no way he could pull off anything near the full Caffrey right now, but he gave it his best shot.

She looked at him for a moment, and Neal felt acutely self-conscious about the beard and the greying hair, but then she smiled as she handed him her phone. “Sure.”

Neal dialed Peter’s number from memory and waited while it rang, his heart beginning to thud in his chest in anticipation of hearing his lover’s voice. It rang three times and Peter failed to pick up, which was odd even in the dead of night. While Peter’s voicemail greeting played, Neal thought about what he should say, how he would explain his absence in a thirty second recording. “I’m sorry, I’ve been gone so long. I miss you and I’m on my way home.” “Please don’t sic the Marshals on me.” “I know it’s been months since you’ve heard from me but, I promise I didn’t run.”

It all sounded so ludicrous and lame in his head that when he finally heard the message beep, he hit the end call button on the phone. When he made it to the city he would go straight out to Brooklyn to Peter and El’s; he would explain in person what had happened. He would sincerely apologize and he would hope like hell they would forgive him and welcome him back into their lives.

He handed the phone back with a smile and a thank you and then turned his head to look out the window into the night. The darkness persisted as they drove to the station in Yonkers and then Ludlow and then to the Riverdale station with its colorful, tilted metal houses public art.

As they pulled away from Riverdale and turned toward the city again, Neal was certain that he could see the lights from Manhattan, glowing like a beacon in the window of the home of a sailor long lost at sea. He kept his eyes fixed on them as they drove ever closer to the shores he longed to set foot on again.

The bus continued on, stopping at Spuyten Duyvil and then it followed the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to stop right on the water at Marble Hill. From there the bus would continue down the Bronx side of the Harlem River, parallel to Manhattan until after the Yankee’s Stadium stop when they would likely take the Madison Avenue Bridge across the river to reach the 125th Street station, the last stop before they would finally, finally reach Grand Central. At this point, it really did feel like it had been months since he had gone to the terminal and boarded the train for Tarrytown.

Just as the driver began to pull away from the Marble Hill station a new fear gripped Neal. He needed to reach Manhattan and from there Brooklyn. He couldn’t wait for the bus to eventually travel through the Bronx before traversing the river to Harlem. They were on 225th and the bus was approaching Broadway and Neal saw the lights from the elevated track of the One subway line above the road and he knew what he had to do.

“Stop!” He yelled as he rose from his seat. The driver hit the brakes, startled by Neal’s shout and Neal scrambled up the aisle to the door. “Please, I need to get off,” he pleaded, pointing to the street as he stood on the top of the steps leading to the doors.

The driver mumbled something that Neal was probably glad not to hear, but he pushed the lever to open the doors.

“Thank you,” Neal intoned honestly before he bounded down the steps, out of the bus and onto the street. Just across the road were the stairs to the subway platform, a stairway to heaven, to home.  
Neal booked across the street to the sidewalk, past the Garden of Eatin and up the three flights of steps to the train platform.

With the tracks before him, Neal scanned the platform and spied a ticket machine. Trusting that the train wouldn’t pull into the station before he had a chance to buy his ticket, he raced to the machine and shoved his credit card in. He choose a single ride ticket, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t need another, that he wouldn’t be turned away at the Burke’s door.

His ticket in hand, he turned back toward the tracks. He looked to the north, but there was no sign of the train. As he had been in Tarrytown, Neal was alone on the platform. The night still carried on, long and lonely. Neal had no idea what time it actually was, but he was certain that each minute that ticked by took an hour or more to pass. He wanted desperately for this night to end and even more, to have his life back the way it had been before he had gotten on the train to Tarrytown.

And yet he paced the length of the platform and waited, knowing that there was no way he was going to get the answers he needed until he could talk to Peter. Eventually a train would come and he would be that much closer to DeKalb Avenue.

Eventually the train did come, the iconic white number one, encircled by a red dot, painted on the side of each car. The train stopped and a pair of doors opened just in front of him and Neal stepped into the car. There were only three other passengers, a couple sitting in a two-seater holding hands and chatting quietly, and on the far end of the car an older gentleman, dressed shabbily, probably using the train as his flop for the night. Neal wondered for a moment how closely he resembled the homeless and lonely man.

Neal looked at all the empty orange and yellow plastic seats, but opted to stand and hold onto the pole in the middle of the car instead. He was so tired and the pounding in his skull had become a constant staccato throbbing and he really just wanted to sit and rest. But the fear of falling asleep and losing more time, more days, or weeks or months kept him on his feet.

The train pulled away from the station with a lurch and Neal stumbled slightly, gripping the metal pole harder to help regain his balance, making the scrapes on the heel of his hand ache.

As the subway crossed over the water, Neal looked out into the night though the windows above the seats and caught his own reflection again in the glass, the beard and the hints of grey hair. He swallowed hard against the fear that rose from his stomach up his chest and into his throat. He stepped in close to the pole and gripped it with his other hand as well, closing his eyes against this reality he didn’t want to see or acknowledge in any way.

The train stopped at 215th Street, 207th, Dyckman, then dipped down underground before stopping at 191st, 181st, and down and down through Manhattan on its way south. At 116th, the stop for Columbia University, a gaggle of students climbed on board Neal’s car, raucous with laughter. Despite the fact that the noise was escalating Neal’s already nasty headache, he welcomed their presence, the first bright sign of life he had encountered since leaving The Horseman so very long ago.

They kept at it, laughing and horsing around as the train passed 110th, the stop Neal would have taken to go to June’s. While the doors were open at the station, Neal almost jumped off, second guessing his decision to go straight to Peter and El’s as the thought of his apartment, safe and comforting, pulled at him. But, before he could will his feet to move, the doors slid shut again, and the train departed the station.

The revelers got off at Columbus Circle and Neal stayed on for two more stops, until the One reached Times Square. Neal got off there, right behind the couple he had shared the car with, and followed the signs to the tunnel that led to the NQR line that would take him out to Brooklyn. The normally bustling Times Square station was also quieter than normal, even for some time in the middle of the night, or hopefully by now, the very early morning. Neal could no longer see the sky, trapped as he was in the underground station, but for some reason he believed that the night was coming closer to its end the closer that he got to Peter and Elizabeth.

At the platform for the NQR, Neal waited again, this time with about a half dozen others for the train to arrive. When a Q finally pulled into the station, Neal uttered a silent thank you. He was about to begin the final leg of his journey.

As he gripped the pole in the car, he realized that his hand was trembling, that in fact his whole body was quaking. He didn’t know whether it was from exhaustion, fear, anticipation or some combination of the three. As the train pulled away from Times Square he willed himself to stop, taking several deep breaths and trying to consciously relax the muscles that had been bunched in knots since he woke up in the diner.

He didn’t have much luck, but he did find counting off the stations as the Q traveled toward Brooklyn somehow soothing, 34th, 28th, 23rd, Union Square, 8th, Prince, Canal. As the train headed out on the Manhattan Bridge, Neal got his first look at the sky again, though obscured by the bridge’s upper deck. He thought maybe, just maybe, the darkness was giving way a bit to the east.

Finally, the Q pulled into the DeKalb station and Neal stepped off the train, his chest tight with both anxiety and exhilaration at finally being just blocks away from where he most wanted to be in the world. He strode purposefully to the stairs at the south end of the station that led up to the street level entrance on DeKalb. Then he bounded up the steps two at a time, his exhaustion forgotten.

On the street, finally, Neal ran the four blocks to the quiet residential section of Brooklyn where the Burke’s lived. He stood on the sidewalk just outside of the small, black wrought iron gate and looked up past the steps to the inviting door of their home just as dawn broke. The white trim around the glass glowed in the light of the sun just rising in the sky. Suddenly, Neal was reminded of the pearly gates. When he approached his version of heaven, would St. Peter let him in? Would he still be worthy to be in Peter and El’s life, in their hearts, in their bed, after disappearing for so long without a word?

He didn’t know the answer, but he needed to find out and face whatever consequences Peter decided to mete out even if it meant he would be banished to purgatory or his own version of hell, separated from the people he had come to love.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before opening the gate and walking up the steps to the front door. He rang the bell and moments later he heard Satchmo whining on the other side of the door. Neal’s chest fluttered and he whispered a prayer, _please help me, Peter._

Finally, the door opened and there stood Neal's hope for salvation. Peter was apparently still getting ready for the day, his dress shirt half buttoned, no shoes on his stocking feet. “Neal, what are you doing here?”

Whatever resources Neal had been using to hold himself together though the endless hours of the night, disintegrated at the sound of Peter’s voice. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m so sorry.”

Peter stepped closer to Neal, into his bubble of personal space, and looked at him intently. It was the look Peter used when he was trying to solve a puzzle during a case, a blend of serious and curious with his lips pursed and his brows furrowed.

“I don’t know what happened, Peter. But, I came straight here, as soon as I could.”

Peter looked even more perplexed. “Neal, I told you last night to take it easy this morning, sleep in.”

Neal blinked, trying to process Peter’s words. He remembered that night last February; Peter’s mouth on his, Peter’s hand caressing his cheek, Peter’s words _“Get some rest. Sleep in in the morning.”_ But, that couldn’t have been just last night. “I…,” Neal stuttered. His hand went to his cheek. The beard was still there and the warm air filling his lungs reminded him that it clearly wasn’t February any more.

When Neal’s hand touched his cheek, Peter fully registered for the first time the full beard, laced with silver that graced his partner’s pale face. Then other inconsistencies glared up at him, the winter coat Neal was wearing, the scape on his partner’s hand that hadn’t been there last night.

Peter wrapped his arm around his younger lover’s trembling shoulders and began guiding him carefully into the house. “Come on, let’s take this inside, okay,” he encouraged soothingly.

Neal nodded compliantly and let Peter lead him into the house. In the foyer, Peter gently eased the wool winter coat off Neal’s body and draped it on one of the hooks on the wall before steering Neal over to the sofa to sit.

Peter perched on the edge of the coffee table across from him and picked up one of Neal’s hands to examine the scrapes he had seen on the porch. Neal’s hand was shaking in his and Neal wouldn’t meet his eyes. “What happened here?” Peter asked as he grazed his fingers against the scratches on the heel of Neal’s hand.

“I fell. I couldn’t find Orion and I fell.”

“Orion’s a winter constellation, buddy.”

Neal nodded, still refusing to meet Peter’s eyes.

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know how it happened.”

Peter put his hand under Neal’s bearded cheek and tilted his head up so that their eyes finally met. “How what happened?”

Neal looked at Peter quizzically, as if he was the one who was making no sense. “How I was gone so long. I came back as soon as I could. I promise.”

Peter realized he was getting nowhere fast with his gentle probing and decided to try a different tack. "Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me what you do know, okay."

Neal nodded, dislodging Peter's hand. "I got the text you sent me the morning after we tried to arrest Edmunds, telling me to come up to Tarrytown."

"Text?" Peter couldn't help interrupting. He hadn't sent Neal a text this morning.

"You said we had a new case, and I was going to love it. So I took the train to Tarrytown, like you said. I texted you when I got there, but you didn't answer, so I texted again that I was going to wait in the diner across the street."

Peter looked at his partner carefully, once again, searching his face, his mannerisms, the tone of his voice. This was not Neal lying or withholding things he didn't 'think' mattered, or even weaving some tale to cover his tracks. This was Neal at his most raw and genuine, his usual walls broken down, and it was beginning to scare the heck out of Peter.

"I fell asleep in the booth, while I was waiting for you, and when I woke up..." Neal's eyes widened, his ice blue irises radiating his anxiety and fear. "When I woke up, everything had changed."

Peter gathered both of Neal's hands in his, squeezing gently, and coaxed his partner to continue. "Tell me what changed, Neal."

"The people were all different and my face, my hair. Then I went outside and the trees were covered in leaves, the grass was green, there were flowers everywhere. And when I looked up, I couldn't find Orion or Taurus; they were gone."

Neal pulled his hands free from Peter's grip and ran them though his hair. "I didn't run, Peter, I swear. I don't know what happened, but I wouldn't leave you and El. Not like that." Neal's voice broke and Peter suddenly felt as confused and helpless as his partner obviously did. Neal's story made no sense, but clearly the younger man believed every word of it.

"Hey, it's going to be okay," Peter said as he sat forward and pulled Neal into his arms. Neal let himself be drawn into Peter’s embrace and dropped his head down onto Peter's shoulder as Peter wrapped his arms around his back. Neal shook and shook as Peter rubbed his hand soothingly over the taut muscles in Neal's shoulders and along his spine.

Eventually, Neal's body began to relax, the shaking winding down to the occasional shudder. "Neal, the Edmunds' takedown was yesterday. You haven't been gone at all. You're just a little confused, buddy and probably concussed. I think your doctor got it wrong last night."

Neal pulled himself out of Peter's arms. "No, Peter. That can't be." Neal shoved his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of papers and began sorting and flattening them out on the coffee table next to Peter's thigh. There were two Metro North train tickets and a Metrocard. Neal held up one of the train tickets. "Here, this is the ticket for the trip to Tarrytown that I took. That was in February."

Peter took the distinctive ticket with the MTA's blue watermark from Neal's hand and examined it. It was a one-way from Grand Central Terminal to Tarrytown. The date in the right hand corner read February 12th, 2012 and the time stamp next to it read 11:56. And, it had holes from a conductor's puncher in it, marking it as used at some point within the two weeks after it was purchased.

"And, here's the one I bought on the platform in Tarrytown to bring me back." Neal's urgency was obvious as he stuffed the second ticket into Peter's hand. This one looked almost the same as the first, until Peter checked the time and date on the bottom. It was yesterday's date, June 12 and time was stamped as 20:48. It too had been punched somewhere along the line by a conductor.

When Peter looked up from his perusal of the second ticket Neal held out the Metrocard. "The train broke down and I couldn't wait for the bus to go all the way around the Bronx and back to Manhattan, so I got on the subway at Marble Hill."

Peter took the card from Neal's hand. It was a one way from Marble Hill to DeKalb. The purchase time read 3:43 AM, June 13. _What the hell?_ That was all Peter could come up with. None of this made a lick of sense. Peter knew without a doubt the he had seen Neal yesterday, that he had nearly lost his mind with fear when Edmund's car almost struck his partner, that he had waited and worried in the ER while Neal was being examined and that he had taken his lover back to Riverside Drive, against his better judgement and left Neal in his Tiger Oak bed, _yesterday_.

The click of El's heels on the stairs brought Peter out of his reverie. "Neal, sweetie what are you doing here so early?"

Neal's head snapped up to look at Elizabeth as she continued to descend the stairs. Peter could see a renewed sense of panic reflected in his wide eyes. "Elizabeth."

El reached the main level and entered the living room, her eyes locked on Neal. "Honey, you don't look good. Why didn't you sleep in this morning? Or even better, why didn't you let Peter bring you home with him last night?"

"Last night?" Neal echoed in his confusion.

"Yes Neal, last night." Peter waved the tickets that he still held in his hand. "I don't know how to explain these, but I do know with absolute certainty that that craptastic Edmunds' takedown was yesterday."

Somehow Neal paled even more. Elizabeth, seeing his distress moved quickly over to the couch, sat next to Neal and took his face between her delicate hands, brushing her fingers against his beard. Glancing at Peter she asked, "What's going on?"

Peter shook his head. "I really have no idea. Neal's convinced he's been AWOL since February. And, something happened. That's obvious from all these tickets, and the beard and the scratches on his hands, but... I have no clue what."

Neal relished the feel of El's comforting caress as she smoothed her hands against his cheeks one last time. Then she picked up one of his hands, examining the scratches there just as Peter had done earlier. El tsked. "I'll go get the first aid kit."

"It's okay. They don't hurt," Neal murmured, certain that he didn't want her to move from his side.

"They still should be cleaned up." El got up from the couch, kissed the top of Neal's head and made her way back upstairs.

"Neal,” Peter said, to gain his partner’s attention. “I promise you that you haven’t been missing for months. You haven’t been missing at all.”

Neal shook his head and Peter could see that Neal was still trembling, but from exhaustion, pain, confusion, anxiety… Peter couldn’t determine for sure. Probably all of the above.

Neal plucked the tickets from Peter’s hand and shook them for emphasis. “This happened to me, Peter.”

Peter frowned, then nodded. “I know something happened,” he concurred as he reached up and ran his hand along Neal’s new beard. “You didn’t grow this overnight.”

Neal leaned into Peter’s touch, desperate for some sort of reassurance. He longed for this all to be some figment of a concussed brain, or some strangely visceral nightmare, but he knew that wasn’t the case. He knew he had been to Tarrytown. He could still feel the vinyl of The Horseman’s booth seat against his back, he could still smell the burgers and the pizza, he could still feel the sting of the sidewalk where his hands hit it. “No, I didn’t.”

It was then that El returned, with the first aid kit and a warm, wet washcloth. She took Neal’s hands gently and wiped them down with the cloth and then with an alcohol swab, clearing away the dirt and grit. As she was patting them dry, Peter asked, “Neal, are you hurt anywhere else?”

Neal shook his head, “No.” He blinked, trying to clear the tears that were forming in the corners of his eyes, but instead they came free and rolled down his cheeks and into his new beard.

Peter slid from the coffee table onto the sofa, took Neal by the shoulders, pulled him against his chest and wrapped his arms around him again. “Hey, it really is going to be okay. I can only imagine how scary this was, but you’re here now and you’re safe. No one believes that you were gone at all. I didn’t hear anything from the Marshals and if they ask, you were with me. You don't have to worry.”

Neal nodded against Peter’s neck, but he was still shaking and Peter could feel the dampness of Neal’s tears bleeding through his shirt.

Peter’s arms were around him, the tender touch of El’s hand was against his back and Neal felt the warmth of their love finally melt the defenses he had erected around his heart. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For believing me, for loving me.”

“Always,” Peter replied tightening his hold on his lover. “You’re a part of us, and we’re so glad you found your way home to us.”

“Always,” Neal repeated, knowing with all his heart that it was true. That no matter where he went, no matter how far away he roamed, no matter what obstacles were placed in his path, he would always find his way back to Peter and Elizabeth.

They stayed that way for long minutes and then El urged them off the sofa and upstairs to the bedroom.

Together, Peter and El carefully stripped Neal down to his boxers and tucked him into the middle of their bed. Then they joined him cocooning him between them.

“Close your eyes, get some rest. We’ll be right here.

Neal closed his eyes, knowing that he was finally safe, that he was loved, that he was home. Unlike Rip he had only lost months, and maybe only in his own mind. He might never learn the truth about what had happened, but he would use those lost months as a reminder that every day was precious. And, he would treasure each moment he had left with Peter and El, the lazy days of picnics in the park, the not so lazy days working in the office, and the long nights spent together in this bed.

 


End file.
